![Tesco set to trigger new price war]()
The UK's biggest supermarket, Tesco, has thrown down the gauntlet to its rivals after unveiling a £500 million price-cutting campaign.
UK chief executive Richard Brasher said Tesco will reduce the prices of 3,000 everyday products - such as milk, bread and fruit and vegetables - in a move which is expected to trigger an aggressive response from peers Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons.
Tesco, which has lost market share in recent weeks as cash-strapped consumers shop around for the best deals, will cover the price cuts by slashing the number of multi-buy promotions and scrapping its double Clubcard points reward offer, meaning the scheme will revert to one point for every pound spent.
Mr Brasher, who took up the top UK post in March, said: "We're giving customers a more straightforward shop - reducing the number of promotions and putting the emphasis on clear and reliable savings that everyone can benefit from."
Tesco said it will also increase the value customers can get from Clubcard vouchers by improving the exchange rates on the most popular rewards from three times to four times the value. The most popular rewards include deals with Pizza Express, Cafe Rouge and Strada.
A typical price cut would include loose carrots, which will be reduced by 14p per kilo, which Mr Brasher said would save 747,000 households around £5.4 million a year. He added that suppliers will be brought to the table over price cuts, but he would expect most to welcome the move as it will boost volume.
He said the £500 million cost of the drive is the biggest he has seen in 25 years of working in retail. He said customers would not stand for volatile price changes and added: "My intention is to reduce prices and keep them in place."
Tesco's market share slipped to 30.4 in the three months to September 4, according to retail analysts Kantar, while Sainsbury's and Morrisons saw slight gains.
Asda reacted to Tesco's announcement with a strongly worded response. The country's second biggest supermarket said: "No amount of spin can change the fact our price guarantee ended price wars. No ifs, no buts, no fine print - 10% better value than our rivals on a comparable grocery shop or a voucher to make it so. Others can huff and puff as much as they like - shoppers want savings not spin, pounds in their pockets, not points on plastic."
Sainsbury's came out fighting as well following Tesco's announcement, accusing its larger rival of misleading customers. A Sainsbury's spokesman said: "This is classic smoke and mirrors from Tesco, giving with one hand and taking with the other. Removing double Clubcard points will save Tesco £350 million. It is no surprise to us that Sainsbury's price match policy, together with a stronger own brand offer, has forced Tesco in having to take this kind of action."
Police will take no action against the organisers of "barbaric" cage fighting involving children as young as eight.
Concerns were raised about whether two boys were put at risk by taking part in a bout at Greenlands Labour Club in Preston, Lancashire, in front of a 250-strong adult audience.
But a spokesman for Lancashire Police said the force has "looked into this matter fully and there are no issues for us to pursue".
Earlier Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt condemned the event as "barbaric" and expressed shock at an apparent lack of restrictions on the activity.
A video of the bout posted on the internet shows the youngsters fighting in a cage without protective padding or headgear and receiving medical attention.
"Getting more young people doing sport is great but I do ask myself whether it really does have to be in a cage," Mr Hunt told the BBC. "It just feels to me, it feels very barbaric and I know there are concerns about children that young doing a sport like that.
"We don't want to discourage children from doing sport, and particularly young boys with all the social problems that we were thinking about in the summer. We have to recognise that sport has a very, very important role but I think with this particular sport, I think some people will ask some questions."
Club owner Michelle Anderson defended her decision to stage the event, and Nick Hartley, the father of one of the boys, told the BBC his son was not at risk of harm.
Mr Hartley said: "He loves the sport. It's not one bit dangerous, it's a controlled sport. He likes to do it. He's never forced to do it, he wants to do it, so leave him to do it. He'll never get hurt, it's a controlled sport, he could never get hurt."
Ms Anderson said: "The children were not doing cage fighting, they were just grappling. There was no punching, kicking or striking. The event was perfectly legal. If you criticise this, then you've got to ask yourself if it's all right for kids to do boxing or judo."
Relatives of one of the Bloody Sunday victims have firmly rejected any offer of Government compensation.
Sisters Linda and Kate Nash, whose teenage brother William was among 14 men who died after paratroopers opened fire on civil rights protesters in Londonderry in January 1972, said: "I find it repulsive."
The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that moves are under way to compensate the families following representation from solicitors acting on behalf of some of the relatives.
The Nash sisters said they would not take money for personal financial gain.
"Not under any circumstances will I ever accept money for the loss of my brother. I find it repulsive, taking anything from the MoD. If the MoD wants to set up bursaries they can, but not in my brother's name," Ms Nash said.
Prime Minister David Cameron has already apologised to victims and said the shootings were wrong.
An MoD spokesman said: "We acknowledge the pain felt by these families for nearly 40 years, and that members of the armed forces acted wrongly. For that, the Government is deeply sorry. We are in contact with the families' solicitors and where there is a legal liability to pay compensation, we will do so."
Lord Saville drew up a landmark report last year which criticised the Army over the killings. His panel ruled that the Army fired first and without provocation. It found that all 14 who died and the others who were injured almost four decades ago were unarmed and completely innocent.
Ulster Unionist leader Tom Elliott called on the Commission for Victims and Survivors to urgently report on all Troubles-related compensation payments.
"Three hundred police officers were murdered during the Troubles, 277 by the IRA. How many children and grandchildren of those who paid the ultimate price for putting themselves in harm's way to protect the rest of us have suffered as a result?"
The union representing headteachers is to hold its first-ever strike ballot in the row over public sector pensions.
Members of the National Association of Head Teachers will vote from September 29 on whether to strike for the first time in the union's 114-year history.
The ballot result is due on November 9, a few weeks before the TUC's day of action in protest at the Government's controversial plans to increase pension contributions for millions of public sector workers.
The union represents 28,500 headteachers, as well as deputy and assistant heads, in schools across Wales, England and Northern Ireland.
The multi-billion pound NHS IT programme will be scrapped earlier than planned with local health trusts given the power to choose their own systems instead, the Government will announce.
Around £6.4 billion has been spent on the National Programme for IT but the scheme is set to be abandoned after various delays and difficulties in what would have been the biggest civilian IT project in the world.
Last month a damning report by the Commons Public Accounts Committee said parts of the ambitious scheme - designed to create electronic patient records for use across the NHS in England - had proved unworkable.
The Government announced last year that the project would be scrapped but health bosses are expected to confirm that this process will be accelerated.
A spokeswoman for the Department for Health could not give a precise timescale but said an announcement would be made later in the autumn about what might replace the existing project.
She said that the approach will be to allow local health trusts to choose their own IT systems, and then to ensure that those systems are linked nationally.
The spokeswoman said that the idea is "instead of replace all let's connect all".
She explained that of the money already spent, two-thirds went on infrastructure. Originally the budget for the scheme was £12.7 billion but this was later revised down to £11.4 billion.
A joint committee between the Cabinet Office and Department of Health will deal with commercial arrangements including agreements with existing contractors and future ones that might be made.
A 30-year-old woman is due to appear in court charged with holding people as slaves and forcing them to carry out work at a travellers' site in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire.
Josie Connors is the fifth person to be charged with offences in relation to the Greenacres travellers' site, which was raided by police on September 11.
She is to appear at Luton Magistrates' Court charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit offences of holding people in servitude and two counts of requiring people to perform forced Labour, Bedfordshire Police said.
It comes after Johnny Connors appeared at Luton Magistrates' Court charged with one count of conspiracy to hold someone in servitude and one count of conspiracy to require someone to perform forced labour.
The 30-year-old was remanded in custody on Tuesday until December 5, Bedfordshire Police said.
Mr Connors is another brother of the three Connor brothers charged last week.
James (Jimmy) Connors, 23, Tommy Connors, 27, and Patrick Connors, 19, were all charged with slavery offences and remanded in custody.
Two other people, a 61-year-old woman and a 51-year-old man, have also been arrested after agreeing to go to Luton police station to talk to officers.
The woman remains in custody while the man was released on police bail pending medical treatment for an ongoing condition.
World markets have slumped as fears of a global recession were reignited by a gloomy outlook from America's central bank.
The FTSE 100 Index was 4.4%, or 231.2 points, lower after the US Federal Reserve flagged "significant downside risks to the economic outlook" and failed to inspire traders with its latest emergency measures to prop up the country's wavering recovery, which included a process dubbed Operation Twist.
The unusual move, designed to keep US interest rates lower for longer through short-term government loans in favour of notes that expire over a lengthier period, disappointed markets, which had surged in recent days in the hope that the Fed might embark on a third package of quantitative easing.
Ben Potter, analyst at IG Markets, said: "Judging by the huge amounts of selling, it seems the market doesn't believe Operation Twist is enough to kick-start the spluttering economy."
The Dax in Germany dropped 4.3% while France's Cac-40 fell 5.1% following a similarly shocking performance on Wall Street, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 2.4% down.
Oil prices tumbled on global growth fears with Brent crude in London dropping nearly 2% to 106.79 US dollars a barrel and light crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange off 4.5% to 82.02 US dollars a barrel.
The grim outlook from the Fed - which pointed to weakness in the US labour and housing market - was the latest shock to already volatile global markets, most recently shaken by financial uncertainty in Greece, which is verging on a debt default.
The dismal picture was compounded by weak manufacturing data in China and from Purchasing Managers' Index data in the eurozone, which revealed a decline in both manufacturing and services.
Fears of a slump in demand for mineral resources saw declines for Vedanta Resources, Kazakhmys and Antofagasta which all lost nearly 10% of their value, while weak sentiment towards the banking sector was aggravated when agency Moody's downgraded credit ratings for three major US banks - Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup.
Barclays was down 7%, Lloyds Banking Group was off 7, but some economists still expect the Fed to roll out so-called QE3 as early as November - which would boost asset prices around the globe by pumping more money into the financial system.
NHS staff tasked with reminding patients to have the flu jab are failing to receive the vaccination themselves - with some believing it could make them ill, health experts have said.
Just over a third of healthcare workers in England, 37.4%, had the vaccine last year. The figure the previous winter was 26.4%.
Professor David Salisbury, the Government's director of immunisation, said: "I find it quite a dilemma that they will give advice to their patients about being vaccinated but will not be protected themselves."
His comments come as the national flu vaccination programme is launched, alongside an awareness drive specifically targeting NHS staff for the first time. The NHS Employers organisation said they wanted administration of the seasonal flu jab to become "as commonplace in the NHS as washing your hands".
Asked for the reasons behind the low numbers of medical staff having the jab, Professor Salisbury said: "I think it's everything. They don't think it's important for them.
"They even think it can give them flu - we still pick up messages from health care workers that they think it can give them flu."
Others say they do not have time for the jab, or think it's not available to them.
Professor Salisbury added: "It's a whole basket of different reasons and it's a shame, because they are people with great influence and they are trusted and believed."
Chief medical officer Dame Professor Sally Davies echoed the concerns about GPs and other medical staff not being protected, and said that such an attitude was "selfish".
Referring to the 37.4% figure, she said: "I worry about that. I hope that it will be higher this year - I expect it will be higher this year. It is clearly available to them, so maybe we haven't made clear enough the advantages to their patients, in previous years. I think we have made it amply clear this year."
The suspected rogue trader accused of gambling away a record £1.5 billion has appeared in court.
Kweku Adoboli, 31, will face a second count of fraud in addition to two charges of false accounting over three years at Swiss banking giant UBS, City of London Magistrates' Court heard.
Adoboli was remanded in custody until October 20. He gave no indication of how he will plead.
David Levy, for the prosecution, said Adoboli now faces two charges of fraud. The new fraud offence was alleged to have taken place between October 1 2008 and December 31 2010.
After the 10-minute hearing, Alison Gowman, the chief magistrate, said Adoboli will appear at the same court on October 20 for a committal hearing.
Prosecutors allege he gambled away the cash while working at UBS's global synthetic equities division, buying and selling exchange traded funds, which track different types of stocks, bonds or commodities such as metals. The primary fraud offence took place between January 1 and September 14 this year, they said.
Adoboli, from Clark Street, east London, has made no application for bail. The son of a former Ghanaian official to the United Nations joined the Swiss firm in a junior capacity in 2002.
The £1.5 billion fraud charge against him reads: "While occupying a position, namely being a senior trader with Global Synthetic Equities, in which you were expected to safeguard, or not to act against, the financial interests of UBS Bank, you dishonestly abused that position intending thereby to make a gain for yourself, causing losses to UBS or to expose UBS to risk of loss."
The two accusations of false accounting - which date back to 2008 - claim that he "falsified a record, namely an exchange traded fund transaction".
After Adoboli's first appearance in court, UBS revised upwards the cost of the rogue trading to 2.3 billion US dollars (£1.5 billion) after previously saying the incident had cost it in the region of two billion US dollars (£1.3 billion).
The Government has insisted there is no "malign intent or hidden agenda" in its planning reforms in the face of a huge outcry over the proposals.
Adopting a more conciliatory tone than that shown by ministers in recent weeks towards opponents of the reforms, planning minister Greg Clark said the current public consultation over the proposals is genuine.
Ministers have previously expressed a determination to "win the battle" over the draft reforms, which slim down 1,000 pages of policy to 52 and focus on a "presumption in favour of sustainable development".
The Government says the changes to the planning system are needed to boost growth, give communities more say in their local area and protect the environment, but concerns have been raised they could lead to a return to urban sprawl and damaging construction
Mr Clark admitted that some of the draft National Planning Policy Framework may not be expressed in "the clearest way" but insisted there is no Government agenda to change the nature of planning.
At a seminar organised by the British Property Federation, Mr Clark said: "The idea that the Government and I would have any part in introducing a set of reforms that have an impact on the ability of local people to express themselves and did anything to undermine the protections to the natural and historic environments that all my life I've been passionate about is simply not the case."
He said the presumption in favour of sustainable development - which opponents say has not been explicitly defined - is not intended to introduce a "loophole" through which development could be imposed on local communities.
Countryside and environmental campaigners have claimed the reforms tip the balance too far in favour of short-term economic growth instead of protecting the environment, and ministers had labelled those who criticised the planned changes as "semi-hysterical", "left-wingers" and of "nihilistic selfishness" for opposing housing development.
Prime Minister David Cameron, however, wrote to the National Trust on Wednesday assuring them that sustainable development is about maintaining balance between economic, environmental and social concerns, sentiments echoed by Mr Clark.
The planning minister said that when "1,000 pages is cut down to a document which is 50-odd pages it is inevitably the case that not everything is expressed in the clearest way, but that doesn't signal any malign intent or hidden agenda to subvert the process".
David Cameron's plans for public service reform and the Big Society will fail without rapid and comprehensive change to the way Whitehall works, MPs have warned.
Moves to decentralise power will require much greater reform of the civil service than currently planned, the cross-party Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) said in a report. Ministers have so far "failed to recognise the scale of reform required" and think change will "just happen", it added.
In a hard-hitting report, the PASC said the Government had no plan for reform of the civil service that would meet the Prime Minister's demands for a shift to localism and the Big Society. The civil service needed to be more transparent, flexible and tasked with commissioning services from charities, social enterprises and private companies, it said.
"We found that while the Government seeks to embrace change, they have failed to recognise the scale of reform required or to set out the change programme required to achieve this reform," the committee said.
"There is a reluctance to produce what they see as the latest in a long line of reform initiatives in Whitehall. This antipathy to a plan for reform fails to take note of the critical factors for success in civil service reform initiatives and wider corporate change programmes: co-ordination from the centre and strong political leadership.
"As a result, key policies like the Big Society agenda and decentralisation will fail.
"We have recommended that the Government should produce a comprehensive change programme articulating clearly what it believes the civil service is for, how it must change and with a timetable of clear milestones."
The PASC called for the Cabinet Office to take charge of Whitehall reform, saying that without a "comprehensive change programme" there would be "little of the real change which was the watchword of David Cameron's manifesto for government".
A spokesman for the Cabinet Office welcomed the report, saying: "We are working with departments across Government to make the civil service smaller, flatter, more fluid and integrated, more entrepreneurial and innovative, with stronger professional and commercial skills and more rigorous performance management.
"We have already made dramatic reductions in the size of the civil service, saving some £300 million from the pay bill in 2010/11. This quarter we have seen staff numbers fall by 18,000 - the largest quarterly fall yet - bringing the number of civil servants to its lowest since World War Two."
London's leading shares index saw its biggest fall in nearly three years as panic over the state of the global economy took hold.
The FTSE 100 Index closed 4.7% or 246.8 points lower at 5041.6 - wiping £64 billion from the value of Britain's biggest companies.
The slump - the biggest points fall since November 2008 - came after America's central bank delivered a gloomy view of the economy and failed to inspire traders with its latest emergency measures, which included a process dubbed Operation Twist.
The US Federal Reserve's warning that there are "significant" risks to the world's biggest economy was joined by disappointing manufacturing figures from Asian powerhouse China and the eurozone.
Meanwhile, Britain joined forces with five other G20 countries to call for decisive and co-ordinated action from the world's leading nations to help the global economy recover from recession.
The UK's biggest supermarket, Tesco, has thrown down the gauntlet to its rivals after unveiling a £500 million price-cutting campaign.
UK chief executive Richard Brasher said Tesco will reduce the prices of 3,000 everyday products - such as milk, bread and fruit and vegetables - in a move which is expected to trigger an aggressive response from peers Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons.
Tesco, which has lost market share in recent weeks as cash-strapped consumers shop around for the best deals, will cover the price cuts by slashing the number of multi-buy promotions and scrapping its double Clubcard points reward offer, meaning the scheme will revert to one point for every pound spent.
Mr Brasher, who took up the top UK post in March, said: "We're giving customers a more straightforward shop - reducing the number of promotions and putting the emphasis on clear and reliable savings that everyone can benefit from."
Tesco said it will also increase the value customers can get from Clubcard vouchers by improving the exchange rates on the most popular rewards from three times to four times the value. The most popular rewards include deals with Pizza Express, Cafe Rouge and Strada.
A typical price cut would include loose carrots, which will be reduced by 14p per kilo, which Mr Brasher said would save 747,000 households around £5.4 million a year. He added that suppliers will be brought to the table over price cuts, but he would expect most to welcome the move as it will boost volume.
He said the £500 million cost of the drive is the biggest he has seen in 25 years of working in retail. He said customers would not stand for volatile price changes and added: "My intention is to reduce prices and keep them in place."
Tesco's market share slipped to 30.4 in the three months to September 4, according to retail analysts Kantar, while Sainsbury's and Morrisons saw slight gains.
Asda reacted to Tesco's announcement with a strongly worded response. The country's second biggest supermarket said: "No amount of spin can change the fact our price guarantee ended price wars. No ifs, no buts, no fine print - 10% better value than our rivals on a comparable grocery shop or a voucher to make it so. Others can huff and puff as much as they like - shoppers want savings not spin, pounds in their pockets, not points on plastic."
Sainsbury's came out fighting as well following Tesco's announcement, accusing its larger rival of misleading customers. A Sainsbury's spokesman said: "This is classic smoke and mirrors from Tesco, giving with one hand and taking with the other. Removing double Clubcard points will save Tesco £350 million. It is no surprise to us that Sainsbury's price match policy, together with a stronger own brand offer, has forced Tesco in having to take this kind of action."
Defence Secretary Liam Fox has criticised "stupid and insensitive" comments by Labour's former security minister who branded Denmark and Belgium "second-rate" military powers.
Lord West made the "appalling" remarks about Britain's allies, both of which deployed to Afghanistan and Libya alongside UK forces, as he unveiled a report aimed at tackling delays and overspends in defence procurement.
The Labour peer and former First Sea Lord spoke of his "annoyance" at suggestions that Britain's military role was diminished in the 21st century.
He said: "This business of a second-tier power - we are probably, depending on what figures you use, the fifth or sixth wealthiest nation in the world.
"We have the largest percentage of our GDP on exports, apart from the tiny countries around the world, we run world shipping from the UK, we are the largest European investor in south Asia, south east Asia (and) the Pacific Rim, so our money and our wealth depends on this global scene.
"We are a permanent member of the (United Nations) Security Council and I think that gives us certain clout and certain ability.
"These mean we are not a second-tier power. We are not bloody Denmark or Belgium, and if we try to become that, I think we would be worse off as a result."
His comments came in a question and answer session with 100 defence industry experts and journalists at Labour headquarters in London as the party revealed the findings of a 10-month review into defence procurement, aimed at getting better value for money from buying equipment for the UK's armed forces.
According to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, Denmark has 750 troops operating in the war-torn country and Belgium has 520.
Dr Fox condemned the peer's remarks, saying: "I'm appalled to hear Labour's Lord West insulting Denmark and Belgium, both of whom have been operating alongside British forces in Libya. Forty-two Danes have lost their lives fighting alongside us in Helmand. Lord West's remarks are both stupid and insensitive."
David Cameron has urged the United Nations to be more ready to take action against oppressive regimes.
In a strong defence of interventionism, the Prime Minister said the Arab Spring uprisings and conflict in Libya demonstrated that the UN needed "a new way of working".
"To fail to act is to fail those who need our help," he told world leaders at the United Nations general assembly in New York.
Mr Cameron said the popular uprisings in north Africa and the Middle East had provided "a massive opportunity to spread peace, prosperity, democracy and vitally security" - but only if nations seized it.
"The UN has to show that we can be not just united in condemnation, but united in action, acting in a way that lives up to the UN's founding principles and meets the needs of the people," he said. "You can sign every human rights declaration in the world, but if you stand by and watch people being slaughtered in their own country, when you could act, then what are those signatures really worth?"
The Prime Minister said the international community needed to use a combination of military action or "hard power" and "soft power" like diplomacy and financial aid. He argued that the people of the Arab world had made clear their aspirations for greater freedom, more accountable governments and an end to corruption.
"As people in North Africa and the Middle East stand up and give voice to their hopes for more open and democratic societies, we have an opportunity - and I would say a responsibility - to help them," he said.
Mr Cameron said: "Here at the UN, we have a responsibility to stand up against regimes that persecute their people."
Asked by Channel 4 News whether he was blocking progress towards a Palestinian state, Mr Cameron said: "I am campaigning for Palestinian statehood. I want to help make it happen."
But he added: "We will only support measures and processes if they actually help to get these talks back on track. I'm a practical person, I don't believe in lofty declarations. I believe in rolling up sleeves to get things done."
Embryonic stem cells are to be used to treat an inherited blinding disorder in a ground-breaking UK trial that has been given the go-ahead.
Doctors at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London will transplant laboratory-grown retinal cells into patients with advanced Stargardt disease.
The Phase I study, which should take place within the next few months, is designed to investigate the safety of the treatment.
Stargardt disease is a form of macular degeneration that causes disabling loss of sight in young people.
Professor James Bainbridge, who will head the trial, said: "There is real potential that people with blinding disorders of the retina, including Stargardt disease and age-related macular degeneration, might benefit in the future from transplantation of retinal cells.
"The ability to regenerate retinal cells from stem cells in the laboratory has been a significant advance and the opportunity to help translate such technology into new treatments for patients is hugely exciting. Testing the safety of retinal cell transplantation in this clinical trial will be an important step towards achieving this aim."
A Moorfields spokeswoman said details such as how many patients will take part in the trial were not yet known.
The procedure uses retinal cells grown in the laboratory from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs).
Stem cells extracted from early-stage embryos are "pluripotent", meaning they have the potential to become virtually any kind of tissue in the body.
However, the technology is controversial since it necessitates the destruction of human embryos, albeit ones that only consist of a pinhead-sized bundle of cells.
A seventh man has been arrested in connection with a counter-terrorism operation in Birmingham, police said.
The 20-year-old, from Yardley, Birmingham, was detained at around 6pm on Thursday on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism in the UK, West Midlands Police said.
A spokesman said he was arrested at a police station which he had agreed to attend.
Six men arrested earlier in the week as part of the same operation remain in custody. Police have until Sunday night to charge or release them, or apply for a warrant of further detention.
The men, all from Birmingham and aged 25 to 32, were arrested on Sunday night and Monday morning as part of a major pre-planned counter-terrorism operation, following a joint investigation by police and MI5.
A seventh person, a 22-year-old woman from Saltley, who was arrested on suspicion of failing to disclose information contrary to the Terrorism Act 2000, was given bail pending further inquiries.
It is understood the investigation relates to suspected Islamist extremism, but it is not thought that an attack or threat was imminent.
A spokesman for the force previously said forensic teams had conducted searches at a total of 16 properties in the city.
The men, from areas of Birmingham including Moseley, Sparkbrook, Balsall Heath, Sparkhill, Yardley and Ward End, were detained at or near their homes.
West Midlands Police said the "large-scale operation" had been running for some time and had been subject to regular review, adding the action was necessary "in order to ensure public safety".
The family of Milly Dowler has backed the no win, no fee system which led to a multimillion-pound settlement over the hacking of the murdered schoolgirl's phone.
The Dowler family said the Government's planned reforms would have threatened their ability to bring a case against such a large company as News International.
It is understood they will receive £2 million from the publishers of the now-defunct News of the World while Rupert Murdoch will also donate £1 million to charity from his own pocket.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, Sally, Bob and Gemma Dowler said they wanted to make it clear they could not have reached the settlement without a no win, no fee agreement.
But Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke is planning to reform the no win, no fee legal scheme amid fears of a compensation culture.
Under the current system, claimants do not have to pay anything if they lose a case, providing no incentive not to sue and giving people a perverse incentive to ramp up their claims, the Ministry of Justice has said.
The Law Society, which has warned that the proposed changes seriously undermine access to justice, welcomed the Dowler family's backing of the Sound Off For Justice campaign.
Des Hudson, the society's chief executive, said: "They have succeeded in making it clear to the Prime Minister that it is ordinary families with terrible life challenges that will be impacted the most. They will be the losers."
But the Government said reforms were needed to stop abuse of the system.
A Government spokesman said: "The Government is absolutely committed to ensuring that people can access the justice system regardless of their financial situation, which is why we are committed to maintaining no win, no fee arrangements. There are many deserving cases brought before the courts. But we have to stop the abuse of the system by others pursuing excessive, costly and unnecessary cases."
Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy became "accidental heroes" in the Libyan conflict, according to a report.
An analysis by the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) of the operation said the success of Nato air strikes relied on "improvisation" and "good luck" as well as military prowess.
Mr Cameron and Mr Sarkozy received a rapturous reception when they addressed a crowd in Benghazi last week. Their visit, to demonstrate support for the fledgling government in Libya, came less than a month after the final overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.
However, the pair had been left "politically exposed" after the US pulled out of the operation, according to Rusi.
Professor Michael Clarke, director general of the think-tank and a contributor to the report, said: "Prime Minister Cameron and President Sarkozy became accidental heroes in a civil war, justified - unlike most civil wars - on grounds of principle.
"Like all military operations, this operation was more messy and ambiguous than politicians like to admit. In this particular case, it reflected a number of new, and sometimes novel, political and military elements."
The allied operation overcame "big political risks" as well as "the improvised use of weapon systems and ambiguous command arrangements" to find success, the report said.
However, the mission has raised questions about the Strategic Defence and Security Review, according to Rusi.
The report concluded: "The 'carrier debate' in Britain will almost certainly be reignited by this operation. The fact is that the operation was successfully conducted without a British aircraft carrier being available.
"But it is equally a fact that the operation involved four major ships that were capable of launching aircraft - the French and Italian carriers, the US assault ship, and Britain's HMS Ocean acting as a helicopter carrier."
